International Journal of Agricultural Science Research and Technology in Extension and Education Systems
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Mar 2014

The study examined the socio-economic and farm level characteristics influencing adoption of rice production technologies in Lavun Local Government Area of Niger State, Nigeria. A total of 76 farmers were randomly selected from 24 villages and data were collected using interview schedule. Descriptive statistics, adoption index and discriminate analysis were used to analyze data. The result revealed that the mean age of the respondents was 38.70 years, while the average farm size of the respondents was 2.4 hectares. Also, 40.78% of respondents acquired one form of formal education or the other ranging from primary to tertiary education. The result further showed that more than half of the respondents (53.95%) were not members of co-operative associations. Majority of respondents (52.26%) were medium adopters of existing technologies. The study also indicated that estimated farm income, farm size, number of rice farms cultivated, number of visit to market, distance of residence to market and farming experience discriminate between categories of adopters. It was therefore suggested that avenue should be provided for favourable price to farmers to increase their farm income to enable them adopt improved technologies, while special agricultural programmes should be organize on rotational basis to take care of less mobile farmers.

The study examined the sources of informal finance in aiding climate change adaptation in South eastern Nigeria. Random sampling was adopted in the selection of 6 out of the 9 communities in the study area. From each of these selected communities, 10 crop farmers were randomly selected giving a total number of 60 respondents. Descriptive statistics such as percentages and frequency, as well as multiple regression analysis were used for data analysis. The socio-economic characteristics showed that the respondents who made use of informal financial sources were predominantly male, and had farming as their primary occupation. The regression results showed that age and level of education of the respondents does not have significant effect on the amount of informal finance. Whereas, gender, marital status; farming experience; and annual farming income have a significant effect on secured amount of informal finance. Inadequacy of the informal lenders, insufficiency of the credit, poor accounting knowledge of money lenders, inconsistency and unreliability of the informal credit are the main constraints of informal finance in the study area and hence negatively influence the adaptation measures on climate change.

In many European states such as Spain and Italy there has been a significant growth of organic utilizable surface as a consequence of both a change in the model of agricultural production and also in order to satisfy arising demand of organic food. The purpose of this research was to investigate the level of technical, allocative and economic efficiency in Italian olive farms with two different system of farming as organic versus conventional using the dataset FADN (acronym of Farm Accountancy Data Network), which is a standardized database set up by the European Union to evaluate the impact of some actions correlated to the Common Agricultural Policy on farmers. The efficiency was investigated using a non parametric quantitative methodology called Data Envelopment Analysis or DEA. The results pointed out as organic olive farmers are more efficiently than conventional farmers even if allocative efficiency was lower in many of analyzed farms due to some pivotal variables such as land, agrarian capital and labor capital, which directly with the independent variable farm net income.

Agricultural extension workers’ service has been placed as the central pattern of agricultural transformation in general and smallholder farmers in particular. Due largely to this commensurately known trend, identifying factors that determine farmers’ access to extension workers’ service and the effect of the service on crop yield was found to be imperative. Cross sectional data was collected through semi-structured questionnaire administered on 270 randomly selected smallholder farmers. While analyzing the data, descriptive statistics and econometric models basically Binary logistic and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression models were employed. Regression results revealed that access to agricultural extension workers’ service was determined positively by irrigation use, fertilizer use, off-farm activities participation, membership to a certain association, education and tropical livestock unit; whereas gender, age and land size carried a negative sign. The regression result also revealed that agricultural extension workers’ service has a positive but insignificant effect on crop yield where no significant crop yield difference have been seen between the visited and non-visited farm households. As per the findings, it is recommended that extension workers need to be financed jointly by the regional government and farmers themselves; thereby extending their roles and responsibilities to the extent of checking farmers at their farm land; and there is a need to solve the fusion of political and agricultural tasks that extension worker are doing.

This study on farmers’ perception and management of natural hazards in production and security of farm investment was carried out in Isuikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria. The study was sought to identify farmers’ perceived natural hazards in food production; identify adopted measures used in mitigating impacts of the hazards and determined factors that influenced farmers from taking formal insurance policy against these hazards. Sixty farmers were chosen following a multi-stage random sampling technique. The instrument of data collection was via a set of semi-structured questionnaire which was administered by personal interview method. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, 5 point likert scale and probit regression model. The result revealed fire outbreak, outbreak of diseases and pests, flooding, erosion, drought, theft, and ill health as natural hazards experienced by the farmers. The most perceived hazard was fire outbreak and the least perceived was floods. Farmers’ level of education, farming experience, previous farm income and enterprise type were significant determinants of farmer’s decision to take formal insurance. Experienced farmers mitigated effects of these hazards using cultural techniques. We recommended that government should provide a cushion infrastructure in form of dams to conserve floods and flowing streams to provide water for irrigation and ameliorate effects of occasional droughts and erratic rainfall. Farmers on their part should be encouraged by farm extension agency to take up formal insurance policy from designate companies against losses to their investments.

This research has an aim to assess agricultural students' satisfaction from their field of study. The statistical population consisted of 1040 students from the University of Bu Ali Sina (800 bachelor and 240 master students) during the years of 2011 to 2013. Through stratified random sampling method 240 bachelor and 80 master students were selected. Data was collected by means of a researcher made questionnaire. Face validity of questionnaire was done through an expert's panel and reliability was tested through pilot testing out of research sample by using Cronbach alpha test. Alpha coefficient was 0.82. The results showed that there was positive relationship among the independent variables i.e. satisfaction from professors' ability, career satisfaction, satisfaction from the content and curriculum, the field of students and the dependent variable (satisfaction from field of study).

Farmers need up to date information on efficient use and management of labour for agricultural production. Yet, they lack adequate and needed information. Hence, this study was undertaken to explore the sources and use of labour information by farmers in southwestern Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select respondents for the study. Primary data were collected to elicit information from the farmers on sources and use of labour related information and data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Extension agents, input dealers, NGOs, produce marketers, private organization, radio, television, posers, acquaintances, farmers’ association/cooperative and advisory leaflets were sources of information used by farmers. However, finding showed that acquaintance was the common source of labour information used by 53.8 percent food crop farmers and 44.8 percent tree crop farmers. They obtained information on labour management, availability, types and use from the above listed information sources. Very few use extension agents as source of labour information in Oyo state and 42.5 percent tree crop farmers indicated that they had no contact with the extension agents. There is need to enhance farmers’ access to needed information on labour related matters and extension services should be improved to impact more technical knowledge to farmers.

The study focused on the analysis of production and marketing constraints of tomato among rural farmers in Talensi Nabdam district of Upper East Region of Ghana.A total of 100 respondents were interviewed using questionnaire. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics to describe the socio economic characteristics of the farmers and Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance was used to rank the constraints. Lack of access to credit and lack of reliable market were the major constraints the farmers were facing. Male’s form 89% of the respondents and 11% were females. This indicates that, majority of the tomato farmers were males. Moreover, 55% of the respondents have no access to basic education. 15% have access to primary and 11% to Senior high School and lastly 4% to tertiary institution which means more than half of the tomato farmers were illiterate.77% of the respondents have been in the practice of tomato production for more than 5 years, this result shows that tomato production is an age long profession of the people in the study area